Income Tax Calculator

Start with gross income. Subtract your deduction (standard or itemized) to get taxable income. Apply the seven 2026 brackets progressively: each slice of taxable income is taxed at that bracket's marginal rate, and the brackets are stacked, so reaching a higher tier only taxes the dollars above the threshold at the higher rate. Sum the per-bracket tax, then subtract non-refundable credits (like the Child Tax Credit) to get your federal tax owed. This calculator runs that exact sequence and shows the per-bracket breakdown so you can see where every dollar of tax came from.

Take the larger of the two. For 2026 the standard deduction is $16,100 single, $32,200 married filing jointly, $24,150 head of household, and $16,100 married filing separately. Itemizing only beats the standard when your eligible items add up to more: state and local taxes, mortgage interest on up to $750,000 of acquisition debt, charitable contributions, and medical expenses above 7.5% of AGI. After the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act roughly doubled the standard deduction, about 90% of filers take it. Toggle the itemized switch in this calculator to see whether your total clears the standard.

Your marginal rate is the rate on your next dollar of income, i.e. the top bracket you reach. Your effective rate is the average rate across all your taxable income (total tax / gross income * 100). The effective rate is always lower than the marginal rate because the lower brackets are taxed at lower rates first. A single filer with $100,000 of gross income in 2026 hits the 22% marginal bracket, but pays an effective federal rate of about 13% once the standard deduction and the lower brackets are accounted for.

No. This calculator covers federal income tax only. It does not include state income tax (which ranges from 0% in nine states to 13.3% in California), the 7.65% FICA payroll tax for W-2 employees (Social Security up to the wage base plus Medicare), the matching 7.65% employer share that self-employed workers pay as the 15.3% SE tax, the 0.9% Additional Medicare Tax above $200,000, or the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax. Calcoid has dedicated tools for several of these: /fica-tax-calculator/, /self-employment-tax-calculator/, and /capital-gains-tax-calculator/.

Enter them in the non-refundable credits field. They subtract directly from your tax owed (a $2,200 credit cuts your federal tax by $2,200, dollar for dollar), which is roughly 4x more powerful than a deduction of the same size at the 22% marginal rate. The Child Tax Credit is $2,200 per qualifying child under 17 for 2026, with up to $1,700 refundable through the Additional Child Tax Credit (handled by the dedicated /tax-refund-calculator/ tool here). Other common credits to add: the Saver's Credit, the American Opportunity Credit (education), the Lifetime Learning Credit, and the Child and Dependent Care Credit. This calculator caps total federal tax at zero, so credits that would push it negative produce a $0 result rather than a refund.